Author 




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...IB. 

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1677 



Title 



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PAPERS ON EDT CATION. First Series, 8, 

PESTALOZZI ;^''' 

THE INFLUENCE OF HI8 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE 
ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 



PAYNE 



Monogz&pk 




eleg ben Thema bestandig und breit abweicbenden 

Causei.. ^ G"!si' ^tspunl* "«'"o+p und iiber welche 

zu 'I'eferiren y. . .i^.ei ..en. 

Mit dem Kongresse war eine hygieinische Ausstellung verbunden, in der 
auch die Schulgesundheitsptlege einige Beriicksichtigung gefunden hatte. Es 
waren ausgestellt: Musterplane von Scbulbausbauten mit besonderer Beriick- 
sichtigung der Einvichtungen in den Klassenziinmevn und der brennenden Fragen 
der Beleuchtung, Ventilation and Heizung; Litoratur iiber die sanitare Schul- 
inspektion in Frankreich, mit den monatlichen Rapporten der Schularzte iiber 
Mobiliiir, Beleuchtung, Verteihnig des Lichtes auf die • Schulbanke und Demon- 
strationstafeln ; Tabellen fiir tagliche Temperaturaufnahmen in den SchuUokalen 
fiir Winter und Bommer und zwar zu verschiedenen Tageszeiten. 8ehr inte- 
ressant waren die Berichte der Stadt Briissel iiber die daselbst iibliche sanitats- 
polizeiliche Ueberwachung der Schulen. In einer Schrift spraeh Dr. Roth von 
London den allerdings nicht neuen, internationalen Wunsch aus, es soUe die 
:gerade Schrift in alien Schulen eingefiihrt werden, weil die Schiefschrift zu 
Ischlechter Haltung und Kurzsichtigkeit pradisponire. 8ehr reiehhaltig war 
auch die Literatur iiber Letztere als SchiJkrankheit par excellence vortreten. 

Unter den mannigfaltigen ausgestellten Subsellien (Schultisehen) befandeu 
isich einige abschreckende und in die Rumpelkammer gehorende franzosiscbe 
Systeme mit der ungliicklichen, noch immer in den Kopfen mancher Techniker 
und Padagogen spukenden Positivdistanz, die nun einraal fiir immer aus den 
jAusstellungen und aus den SchuUokalen verschwinden soUte! Das raerkwiirdigste 
Jst wol, dass ein franzosisches Zweiplatzesystem mit einem positiven Abstand 
von 4: cm von der Stadt St. Denis adoptirt worden war. Es scheinen dort die 
modernen Konstruktionsgrundsatze fiir Subsellien noch nicht in Fleisch und Blut 
iil)ergegangen zu sein. 

Die schulhygieinische Sektion des vierten internationalen Kongresses fiir 
offentliche Gesundheitspflege in Genf hat dem Teilnehmer mancherlei frucht- 
bare Anregungen dargeboten. Als die bedeutungsvollste und fiir die Praxis 
verwertbarste mochten wir diejenige bezeichnen, den Postulaten Cohn's iiber 
die Ernennung und iiber die Verrichtungen von Schularzten auch in der Schweiz 
iiberall Eingang und Geltung zu verschaffen. Eine hygieinische Revision unserer 
Schulen, und von den betreffenden Erhebungen ausgehend, auch eine weitere 
Reform in denselben, wenigstens mit der iiberall selbst in der iirmsten Gemeinde 
moglichen und dringenden Beriicksichtigung des manchenorts so stiefmiitterlich 
behandelten Mobiliars muss Jedem, der den gegenwartigen Status aufraerksam 
betrachtet, als unabweisliche Notwendigkeit erscheinen. 

I Wir haben uns durch eine eingehende, in tabellarischer Form auch an dem 

Kongresse in Genf ausgestellte hygieinische Statistik uber sammtliche Elemen- 

itarschulen des Bezirks Unterrheinthal (Kant. St. Gallen) zur Geniige von dem 

! durchschnittlich niedrig stehenden Niveau der jetzigen Schulhygieine uberzeugt. 

Auf einen an der letzten kantonalen st. gallischen Konferenz im verflossenen 

Sommor durch einen Lehrer gestellten und von uns warm befiirworteten Antrag, 

I der Erziehungsrat moge eine schulhygieinische Statistik siimmtlicher Primar- 

schulen des Kantons vornehmen lassen, ha* ' HD'anr":^ betreffende BehiJrde in 

sehr anerkenuensw"-+^ , v' ,,•)• '^esch^ !({>rA ^j'j^ ttelst eines besonderen 

'an die Lehrer abzu ' ,cheh^ " ^^ ^ rk zu legen. Bekannt- 

ilich sind in dieser zeiigemassen Aufgabe V^' "'^f'^''"^ ,e, z. B. Bern, Grau- 

luiiidten, Glarus etc. bereits vorangegangen. 

Die Schulgesundheitspflege ist ein noch vielfach brachliegendes, aber bei 
rationeller Bebauung dankbares Gebiet: „sie ist des Schweisses der Edlen wert! 




ydiann Hcinrich Pestalozzi. 

Statt einer biographischen Skizze geben wir nachstehend die Grabsehi 
auf dera Denkmale Pestalozzi's in Birr: 



HIER RUHT 

HEINRICH PESTALOZZI, 

CtEBOREN in ZURICH AM 12. JANUAR 1746, 
GESTORBEN IN BRUGG AM 17. HORNUNG 1827. 

BETTER DER ARMEN AUF NEUHOF, 

PREDIGER DES VOLKES IN LIENHARD UND GERTRUD, 

ZU STANZ VATER DER WAISEN, 

ZU BURGDORF UND MUNCHENBUCHSEE 

GRUNDER DER NEUEN VOLKSSCHULE. 

ZU IFERTEN ERZIEHER DER MENSCHHEIT. 

MENSCH, CHRIST, BlIRGER. 

ALLES FUR ANDERE, FUR SICH ^^IQHTS. 

SEGEN SEINEM NAMEN! / 



PESTALOZZI ; 



THE INFLUENCE OF HIS PRINCIPLES AM) PRACTICE 
ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 

-A LECTURE - 
DELIVERED AT THE COLLEGE OF PRECEPTOES, FEB. 20, 1876. 



JOSEPH PAYNE, F.C.P., 

h 

UlTE PBOFESSOR of the science and art of education to the COIiliEOS; 
MEMBEK OF THE COUNCIL OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCEETT, ETC. 



Avant d'envoyer le peuple a I'ecole, 
allez-y voiis-memes! Classes eclairees, 
6clairez-vous ! Gustave Flambest. 

The end is in the beginning. 



NEW YORK: 
E. STEIGER. 

■ '1811. ■ 









\ 



% 



In recognizing C bservation (Anschaunng) as the absolute basis of 
knowledge, I have established the first and most important principle ol 
struction 

I have turned quite round the European car of education, and set it in 
new direction. — Pestalozzi. 

La m^thode de Pestalozzi est r^elle, applicable, et peut avoir une grandc 
influence sur la marche future de I'esprit humain. 

Pestalozzi met I'enfant en 6tat de d^couvrir lui-meme ce qu'on vent lui en- 
seigner. — Mme. De Stael, Be VAUemagne. 

The principle adopted and adhered to by Pestalozzi is in its nature uni 
versal, and may be universally applied. In few words, it is simply attendinj- 
to the laws of Nature. By these it has been ordained, that the human under- 
standing, though it may be gradually opened, and enabled to embrace a vas" 
extent of knowledge, can only be opened gradually, and by a regular series ol 

efforts According to this method, the mind of the pupil cannot be passive 

in receiving instruction. It is compelled to work its way to knowledge, and 
having its activity properly directed, is led step by step to the perception o) 
truth. — Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton, Hints addressed to the Patrons and Di- 
rectors of Schools, 1815. 

Eabelais glfeve un roi, Montaigne un prince, Locke et Rousseau un gentil- 
homme, et Pestalozzi tout le monde. — Michelet, Nos fils, 1870. 

Pestalozzi ist der Konig in diesem Herrscherreich {i. e., in Pedagogy), zu 
gleich der Prophet der neueren Padagogik iiberhaupt.— Kabl Schmidt, Ge- 
schichte der Padagogik, 1870. 






PREFACE. 



There is much talk now-a-days about "raising the 

■tandard of education;" and it is supposed by some that 

is standard may be raised by the additiorf of new subjects 

'. the curriculum of elementary instruction. If, however, 

he machinery of our education is defective— and the results 

•rove that it is — giving-it more work to do is surely a unique 

device for improving its action. The mill grinds badly, and 

the grist is unsatisfactory ; and the remedy proposed is to 

put more corn into the hopper. It remains to be seen how 

far this expedient will meet the acknowledged difficulty. 

Others, again, look to increased attendance at school as 
the desideratum. They say— only let us have more scholars, 
and keep them a longer time, and " the quality of the edu- 
cation may be indefinitely improved." If, however, the 
system is weak — and the results show that it is — it is, again, 
difficult to see by what magic increasing the number of its 
victims is to improve the system. It is quite impossible that 
those who understand by raising the standard of education, 
the improvement of the methods, the elevation of its aims, 
i.nd the substitution of a living spirit for the dead letter, can 
accept these as efiectual remedies. In their view, it is the 
disordered constitution itself that requires an alterative 
treatment, which no tinkering of Codes will supply. 

Something, of course, may be hoped for from the element 
of "intelligence" and for the first time, recognized as a 
actor in learning and teaching to read; but the novelty of 
lie requirement, and the unpreparedness of many of the 
achers (especially pupil-teachers) to satisfy it, will for some 
time to come prove hindrances to its complete adoption. 
One might perhaps be allowed to ask why this same "intel- 
ligence" is not prescribed in the cases of Arithmetic, Geog- 
m 



— IV — 

raphy, etc. , where according to the reports of all the School 
Inspectors, it seems to be very generally needed. 

The author of this lecture on Pestalozzi has a firm con- 
viction that the standard of education is effectively raised 
when the teacher has a clear view of the purpose and nature 
of education ; when he looks upon it as a means of making 
the best of all the native powers of the child; when he culti- 
vates these powers in such a way as to excite their healthy 
action ; when he trains the observing powers, and makes 
the child an observer ; when he brings these trained powers 
of observation to bear both on ' ' that which before them lies 
in daily life," and on all matters of positive instruction — and 
therefore both instructs by educating and educates by in- 
structing ; when, by his action and influence, he gets the 
child to associate pleasure with the exercise of his own 
powers ; when he refrains from telling and explaining, and 
makes the child tell and explain ; when he refrains from 
much talking himself, and makes the child talk — i. e. say 
out what he thinks ; when he refrains from doing anything 
for the child which he can do for himself; when, in short he 
secures the child's self-activity and independence by calling 
his faculties into exercise, and regards himself only as the 
stimulator and director of the forces that he elicits. 

This, in a general way, is what the writer understands 
by education ; and he believes that the recognition of these 
as its aims would really raise the standard of education. It 
is for the reader to judge whether the processes and prin- 
ciples at work generally in our primary schools, under the 
Revised or New Codes, answer to this standard. If they do 
not, it might be wise to inquire of Pestalozzi what he means 
by elementary education, and how he would carry it out. 
The Lecture which follows will give an answer to these 
questions. 

JOSEPH PAYNE. 

KiLDAEE Gardens, W. ; 
May 20th, 1875. 



PESTALOZZI ; 

THE INFLUENCE OF HIS PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE ON 
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



Familiar as Pestalozzi's name is to our ears, it will 
hardly be pretended that he himself is well known amongst 
us. His life and personal character — the work he did him- 
self, and that which he influenced others to do — his successes 
and failures as a teacher, form altogether a large subject, 
which requires, to do it justice, a thoughtful and lengthened 
study. Parts of the subject have been from time to time 
brought very prominently before the public, but often in 
such a way as to throw the rest into shadow, and hinder 
the appreciation of it as a whole. Though this has been 
done without any hostile intention, the general effect has 
been in England to misrepresent, and therefore to under- 
estimate, a very remarkable man — a man whose principles, 
slowly but surely operating on the i)ublic opinion of Ger- 
many, have sufficed, to use his own pithy expression, ''to 
turn right round the ear of Education, and set it in a new 
direction." 

One of the aspects in which he has been brought before 
us— and it deserves every consideration— is that of an ear- 
nest, self-sacrificing, enthusiastic philanthropist, endowed 
with what Richter calls "an almighty love," whose first 
and last thought was how he might raise the debased and 
suffering among his countrymen to a higher level of happi- 
ness and knowledge, by bestowing upon them the blessings 
of education. It is right that he should be thus exhibited 
to the world, for never did any man better deserve to be 
enrolled m the noble army of martyi's who have died that 
others might live, than Pestalozzi. To call him the Howard 



_ 2 — 

of educational philanthropists, is only doing scant justice 
to his devoted character, and under-estimates, rather than 
over-estimates, the man. 

Another aspect m which Pestalozzi is sometimes pre- 
sented to uSj is that of an unhandy, unpractical, dreamy 
theorist; whose views were ever extending beyond the com- 
pass of his control; who, like the djinn of the Eastern story, 
called into being forces which mastered instead of obeying 
him; whose ''unrivalled incapacity for governing"' (this is 
his own confession) made him the victim of circumstances; 
who was utterly wanting in worldly wisdom ; who, knowing 
man, did not know men; and who, therefore, is to be 
set down as one wlio promised much more than he per- 
formed. It is impossible to deny that there is substantial 
truth in such a representation; but this only increases the 
wonder that, in spite of his disqualifications, he accom- 
plished so much. It is still true that his awakening voice, 
calling for reform in education, was responded to b}^ hun- 
dreds of earnest and intelligent men, who placed themselves 
under his l)anner, and were proud to follow whither the 
Luther of educational reform wished to lead them. 

A third view of Pestalozzi presents him to us as merely 
interested about elementary education— and this appears to 
many who are engaged in teaching what are called higher 
sul3jects, a matter in which they have little or no concern. 
Those, however, who thus look down on Pestalozzi's work, 
only show, by their indifference, a profound want, both of 
self-knowledge, and of a knowledge of his principles and 
purpose. Elementary education, in the sense in which 
Pestalozzi understands it, is, or ought to be, the concern of 
every teacher, whatever be his especial subject, and what- 
ever the age, of his pupils; and when he sees that elemen- 
tary education is only another expression for the forming of 
the character and mind of the child, he must acknowledge 
that this object comes properly within the sphere of his la- 
bors, and deserves, on every ground, his thoughtful attention, 



— 3 — 

In spite, then, of Pestalozzi's patent disqualifications in 
many respects for the tasii he undertook; in spile of bis 
ignorance of even common subjects (for he spoke, read, 
wrote, and ciphered badly, and knew next to nothing of 
classics or science); in spite of his want of worldly wisdom, 
of any comprehensive and exact knowledge of men and of 
things; in spite of his being merely an elementary teacher, 
— through the force of his all-conquering love, the nobility of 
his heart, the resistless energy of his enthusiasm, his lirni 
grasp of a few first pi'inciples, his eloquent expo^ilion of 
them in words, his resolute manifestation of them in deeds, 
— he stands forth among educational reformers as the man 
whose influence on education is wider, deeper, more pene- 
trating, than that of all the rest — the prophet and the sov- 
ereign of the domain in which he lived and labored. 

The fact that, with such disqualifications and drawbacks, 
he has attained such a position, supersedes any argument 
for our giving earnest heed to what he was and what he 
did. It is a fact pregnant in suggestions, and to the con- 
sideration of them this Lecture is to be devoted. 

It was late in life — he was fifty-two years of age— before 
Pestalozzi became a practical schoolmaster. He had even 
begun to despair of ever finding the career in which he 
might attempt to realize the theories over which his loving 
heart and teeming brain had been brooding from his earliest 
youth. He feared that he should die, without reducing the 
ideal of his thought to the real of action,* 

Besides the advanced age at which Pestalozzi began his 
work, there was another disability in his case to which I 



* See the particulars of Pestalozzi's life, in Mr. Qiiick's admirable 
Essays on Educational Reformers ; in Pestalozzi, edited for the Home and 
Colonial Society, by Mr. Dunning, in Von Eaumer's History of Eluca- 
tion; in Roger de Guimps' Histoire de Pestalozzi, de sa Pensee, et de son 
(Euvre, Lausanne, 1874; in the Life and work of Pestalozzi, by Hermann 
Kriisi, New York, 1875; and in various treatises by Mr. Henry Barnard, 
late of the State Department of Education, Washington, 



_ 4 — 

have not referred. This was, that not only had he had no 
experience of school work, but knew no eminent teacher 
wliose example might have stimulated him to imitation; and 
he was entirely ignorant (with one notable exception) of all 
writings on the theory and practice of education. The ex- 
ception I refer to is the tlmlle of Rousseau, a remarkably 
suggestive book, which made, as was to be expected, a 
strong impression on his mind. We know from his own ac- 
count, that he had already endeavored, with indifferent suc- 
cess, to make his own son another i^mile. The diary in 
which he has recorded day by day the particulars of his ex- 
periment is extremely interesting and instructive. 

At fifty-two years of age, then, we find Pestalozzi utterly 
unacquainted with the science and the art of education, and 
very scantily furnished even with elementary knowledge, 
undertaking at Stanz, in the canton of Unterwalden, the 
charge of eighty children, whom the events of war had ren- 
dered homeless and destitute. Here he was at last in the 
position which, during years of sorrow and disappointment, 
he had eagerly desired to fill. He was now brought into 
immediate contact with ignorance, vice, and brutality, and 
had the opportunity for testing the power of his long-cher- 
ished theories. The man whose absorbing idea had been 
that the ennobling of the people, even of the lowest class, 
through education, was no mere dream, was now, in the 
midst of extraordinary difficulties, to struggle with the solu- 
tion of the problem. And surely if any man, consciously 
possessing strength to fight, and only desiring to be brought 
face to face with his adversary, ever had his utmost wishes 
granted, it was Pestalozzi at Stanz. Let us try for a moment 
to realize the circumstances — the forces of the enemy on the 
one side, the single arm on the other, and the field of the 
combat. The house in which the eighty children were as- 
sembled, to be boarded, lodged, and taught, was an old 
tumble-down Ursuline convent, scarcely habitable, and des- 
titute of all the conveniences of life. The only apartment 



~ 5 — 

suitable for a schoolroom was about twenty-four feet square, 
furnished with a few desks and forms; and into this were 
crowded the wretched children, noisy, dirty, diseased, and 
ignorant, with the manners and habits of barbarians. Pes- 
talozzi's only helper in the management of the institution 
was an old woman, who cooked the food and swept the 
rooms; so that he was, as he tells us himself, not only the 
teacher, but tlie paymaster, the man-servant, and almost 
the house-maid of the children. 

Here, then, we see Pestalozzi surrounded by a "sea of 
troubles," against which he had not only "to take arms," 
but to forge the arms himself And what was the single 
weapon on which he relied for conquest ? It was his own 
loving heart. Hear his words: — "My wishes were now ac- 
complished. I felt convinced that my heart would change 
the condition of my children as speedily as the springtide 
sun reanimates the earth frozen by the winter." "Nor," 
he adds, "was I mistaken. Before the springtide sun 
melted away the snow from our mountains, you could no 
longer recognize the same children." 

But how was this wonderful transformation effected ? 
What do Pestalozzi's words really mean ? Let us pause for 
a moment to consider them. Here is a man who, in presence 
of ignorance, obstinacy, dirt, brutality, and vice — enemies 
that will destroy him unless he can destroy ^/<em— opposes 
to them the unresistible might of weakness, or what appears 
such, and fights them with his heart ! 

Let all teachers ponder over the fact, and remember that 
this weapon, too frequently forgotten, and therefore un- 
forged in our training colleges, is an indispensable requisite 
to their equipment. Wanting this, all the paraphernalia of 
literary certificates— even the diplomas of the College of Pre- 
ceptors — will be unavailing. With it, the teacher, poorly 
furnished in other respects (think of Pestalozzi's literary 
qualifications!), may work wonders, compared with which 
tije so-called magician's are mere child's play. The first les- 



— 6 — 

son, then, that we learn from Pestalozzi is, that the teacher 
must have a heart— an apparently simple but really profound 
discovery, to which we cannot attach too much impoi'tance. 

But Pestalozzi's own heart was not merely a statical 
heart— a heart furnished with capabilities for action, but 
not acting; it was a dynamical heart — a heart which was 
constantly at work, and vitalized the system. Let us see 
how it worked. 

*'I was obliged," he says, "unceasingly to be everything 
to my children. 1 was alone with them from morning to night. 
It was from my hand that they received whatever could 
be of service both to their bodies and minds. All succor, all 
consolation, all instruction came to them immediately from 
myself. Their hands were in my hand; my eyes were fixed 
on theirs, my tears mingled with theirs, my smiles encoun- 
tered theirs, my soup was their soup, my drink was their 
drink. I had around me neither family, friends, nor ser- 
vants; I had only them. I was with them when they were 
in health, by their side when they were ill. I slept in their 
midst. I was the last to go to bed, the first to rise in the 
morning. When we were in bed, I used to pray with them 
and talk to them till they went to sleep. They wished me 
to do so." 

This actrve, practical, self-sacrificing love, beaming on 
the frozen hearts of the children, by degrees melted and ani- 
mated them. But it was only by degrees. Pestalozzi was 
at first disappointed. He had expected too much, and had 
formed no plan of action. He even rather prided himself 
upon his want of plan. 

"I knew," he says, " no system, no method, no art but 
that which rested on the simple consequences of the firm be- 
lief of the children in my love towards them. I wished to 
know no other." 

Before long, however, he began to see that the response 
which the movement of his heart towards theirs called forth 
was rather a response of his personal etibrts, than one die- 



tated by their own will and conscience. It excited action,' 
but not spontaneous, independent action. This did nut sat- 
isfy him. He wished to malie them act from strictly moral 
motives. 

Gradually, then, Pestalozzi advanced to the main princi- 
ples of his system of moral education — that virtue, to be 
worth anything, must be practical; that it must consist not 
merely in knowing what is right, but in doing it; that even 
knowing what is right does not come from the exposition of 
dogmatic precepts, but from the convictions of the con- 
science; and that, therefore, both knowing and doing rest 
ultimately on the enlightenment of the conscience through 
the exercise of the intellect. 

He endeavored, in the first place, to awaken the moral 
sense — to make the children conscious of their moral powers, 
and to accomplish his object, not by preaching to them, 
though he sometimes did this, but by calling tliese powers 
into exercise. He gave them, as he tells us, few explana- 
tions. He taught them dogmatically neither morality nor 
religion. He wished them to be both moral and religious; 
but he conceived that it was not possible to make them so 
by verbal precept, by word of command, nor by forcing them 
to commit to memory formularies which did not represent 
their own convictions. He did not wish them to say they 
believed, before they believed. He appealed to what was 
divine in their hearts, implanted there by the Supreme 
Creator ; and having brought it out into consciousness, 
called on them to exhibit it in action. "When," he says, 
" tli(3 children were perfectly still, so that you might hear a 
pin drop, I said to them, 'Don't you feel yourselves more 
reasonable and more happy now than when you are making 
a disorderly noise ?' When they clung round my neck and 
called me their father, I would say, 'Children, could you de- 
ceive your father? Could you, after embracing me tims, do 
behind ray back what you know I disapjirove of?' And when 
we were speaking about the misery of our country, and they 



felt the happiness of their own lot, I used to say, * How good 
God is, to make the heart of man pitiful and compassionate.' " 
At other times, after telling them of the desolation of some 
family in the neighborhood, he would ask them whether they 
were willing to sacrifice a portion of their own food to feed 
the starving children of that family ? 

These instances will suffice to show generally what Pesta- 
lozzi meant by moral education, and how he operated on the 
hearts and consciences of the cliildren. We see that, in- 
stead of feeding their imagination with pictures of virtue 
beyond and above their sphere, he called on them to exercise 
those within their reach. He knew wiiat their ordinary 
family life had been, and he wished to prepare them for 
something better and nobler ; but he felt that this could only 
be accomplished by making them, while members of his 
family, consciously appreci«,te what was riglit and desire to 
do it. 

Here then, in moral and, as we shall presently see, in in- 
tellectual education, Pestalozzi proceeded from the near, the 
practical, the actual — to the remote, the abstract, the ideal. 
It was on the foundation of what the children were, and 
could become, in the sphere they occupied, that he built up 
their moral education. 

But he conceived — and, I think, justly — that their intel- 
lectual training was to be looked on as part of their moral 
training. A¥hatever increases our knowledge of things as 
they are, leads to the appreciation of the truth ; for truth, 
in the widest sense of the term, is this knowledge. But the 
acquisition of knowledge, as requiring mental effort, and 
therefore exercising the active powers, necessarily increases 
the capacity to form judgments on moral questions ; so that, 
in proportion as you cultivate the will, the affections, and 
the conscience, with a view to independent action, you must 
cultivate tlie intellect, which is to impose the proper limits 
on that independence ; and on the other hand, in proportion 
as you cultivate the intellect, you must ti'ain the moral 



powers which are to carry its decisions into effect. Moral 
and intellectual education must consequently, in the forma- 
tion of the human being, proceed together, the one stimulat- 
ing and maintaining the action of the other. Pestalozzi, 
therefore, instructed as well as educated ; and indeed edu- 
cated by means of instruction. In carrying out this object, 
he adopted the general principle I before stated. He pro- 
ceeded from the near, the practical, the actual, to the remote, 
the abstract, and the ideal. 

We shall see his theoretical views on this point in 
a few quotations from a work wliich he wrote some 
years before, entitled 'T/ie Evening Hour of a Hermit." 
He says : — 

"Nature develops all the human faculties by practice, 
and their growth depends on their exercise." 

"The circle of knowledge commences close arouM a man, 
and thence extends concentrically." 

" Force not the faculties of children into the remote paths 
of knowledge, until they have gained strength by exercise on 
things that are near them." 

' 'There is in Nature an order and march of development. 
If you disturb or interfere with it, you mar the peace and 
harmony of the mind. And this you do, if, before you have 
formed the mind by the progressive knowledge of the reali- 
ties of life, you fling it into the labyrinth of words, and make 
them the basis of development." 

"The artificial march of the ordinary school, anticipating 
the order of Nature, which proceeds without anxiety and 
without haste, inverts this order by placing words first, and 
thus secures a deceitful appearance of success at the expense 
of natural and safe development."' 

In these few sentences we recognize all that is most 
characteristic in the educational principles of Pestalozzi. 

I will put them into another form : — 

(1) There is a natural order in which the powers of the 
human being develop or uafold themselves. 



— 10 — 

(2) We must study and understand this order of Nature, 
if we would aid. and not disturb, tlie development. 
n4-c (ji. (3) We aid the development, and consequently promote 

the growth of the faculties concerned in it, when we call 
them into exercise. 

(4) Nature exercises the faculties of children on the real- 
ities of life — on tlie near, the present, the actual. 

(5) If we would promote that exercise of the faculties 
which constitutes development and ends in growth, we also, 
as teachers, must, in the case of children, direct them to the 
realities of life — to the things which come in contact with 
them, which concern their immediate interests, feelings, and 
thoughts. 

(6) Within this area of personal experience we must 
confine them, until, by assiduous, practical exercise in it, 
their pow'ers arc strengthened, and they are prepared to ad- 
vance tt) the next concentric circle, and then to the next, 
and so on, in unbroken succession. 

(7) In the order of Nature, things go before words, the 
realities before the symbols, the substance before the shadow. 
We cannot, without disturbing the harmonious order of the 
development, invert thi^ order. If we do so, we take the 
traveller out of the open sunlit high-road, and plunge him 
into an obscure labyrinth, where he gets entangled and be- 
wildered, and loses his way. 

These are the fundamental principles of Pestalozzi's the- 
ory of intellectual as well as moral education, and I need 
hardly say that they resolve themselves into the principles 
of human nature. 
^j But we next inquire. How did he apply them ? What was 

his method ? These questions are somewhat embarrassing, 
and, if strictly pressed, must be answered by saying that he 
often applied them very imperfectly and inconsistently, and 
that his method for the most part consisted in having none at 
all. The fact is, that the unrivalled incapacity for govern- 
ing men and external things, to which he confessed, extended 



— 11 — 

itself also to the inner region of his understanding. He could 
no more govern his conceptions than the circumstances 
around him. The resuhing action, then, was wanting in 
order and proportion. It was the action of a man set upon 
bringing out tlie poweis of those he influenced, but apparent- 
ly almost indifferent to what became of the results. His no- 
tion of education as development was clear, but he scarcely 
conceived of it as also training and discipline. Provided 
that he could secure a vivid interest in his lesson, and see 
the response to his efforts in the kindling eyes and animated 
countenances of his pupils, he was satisfied. He took it for 
granted that what was so eagerly received would be certainly 
retained, and therefore never thought of repeating the lesson, 
nor of examining the product. Ho was so earnestly intent upon 
going ahead, that he scai-cely looked back to see who were 
following ; and to his enormous zeal for the good of the 
whole, often sacrificed the interests of individuals. This zeal 
was without discretion. He forgot what he might have 
learned from Rousseau — that a teacher who is master of his 
art frequently advances most surely by standing still, and 
does most by doing nothing. In the matter of words, more- 
over, his practice was often directly opposed to his prin- 
ciples. He would give lists of words to be repeated after 
him, or learnt by heart, which represented nothing real in 
the experience of the pupils. In various other ways he 
manifested a strange inconsistency. 

Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, if we look upon the 
teacher as a man whose especial function it is, to use an 
illustration from Socrates, to be, as it were, the accoucheur 
of the mind, to bring it out into the sunlight of life, to rouse 
its dormant powers, and make it conscious of their posses- 
sion, we must assign to Pcstalozzi a very high rank among 
teachers. 

It was this remarkable instinct for developing the facul- 
ties of his pupils that formed his main characteristic as a 
teacher. Herein lay his great strength. To set the Intel- 



— ]2 — 

lectual machinery in motion — to make it work, and keep it 
working ; that was the sole object at which he aimed :* of 
all the rest he took little account. If he had any method, 
this was its most important element. But, in carrying it 
out, he relied upon a principle which must be insisted on 
as cardinal and essential in education. He secured the 
thorough interest of his jmpils in the lesson, and mainly 
through their own direct share in it. By his influence upon 
them he got them to concentrate all their powers upon it ; 
and this concentration, involving self-exercise, in turn, by 
reaction, augmented the interest ; and the result was an 
inseparable association of the act of learning with pleasure 
in learning. Whatever else, then, Pestalozzi's teaching- 
lacked, it was intensely interesting to the children, and 
made them love learning. 

Consistently with the principles quoted from the ' 'Even- 
ing Hours of a Hermit,^^ and with the practice just de- 
scribed, we see that Pestalozzi's conception of the teacher's 
function made it consist pre-eminently in rousing the pupil's 
native energies, and bringing about their self-development. 
This self-development is the consequence of the self-activity 
of the pupil's own mind — of the experience which his mind 
goes through in dealing with the matter to be learned. This 
experience must be his own ; by no other experience than 
his own can he be educated at all. The education, there- 
fore, that he gains is self-education ; and the teacher is con- 
stituted as the stimulator and director of the intellectual 
l^rocesses Tjy ivhich the learner educates himself. This I 
hold to be the central principle of all education — of all 
teaching; and although not formally enunciated in these 
words by Pestalozzi, it is clearly deducible from his theory. 

"We are now prepared to estimate the great and special 
service which Pestalozzi did to education. It is not his 
speculative theories, nor his practice (especially the latter), 
which have given him his reputation — it is that he, beyond 
all who preceded him, demanded that paramount importance 



— 13 — 

should be attached to the elementary stages of teaching. 
''His differentia," as Mr. Quick justly remarks, "is rather 
his aim than his method." He saw more clearly than all 
his predecessors, not only what was needed, but how the 
need was to l)e supplied. Elementary education, in his 
view, means, not definite instruction in special subjects, but 
the eliciting of the powers of the child as preparative to def- 
inite instruction, — it means that course of cultivation which 
the mind of every child ouglit to go through, in order to 
secure the all-sided development of its powers. It does not 
mean learning to read, write, and cipher, which are mat- 
ters of instruction, but the exercises which should precede 
them. Viewed more generally, it is that assiduous work 
of the pupil's mind upon facts, as the building materials 
of knowledge, by which they are to be shaped and prepared 
for their place in the edifice. After this is done, but 
not before, instruction proper commences its systematic 
work. 

This principle may find its most general expression as a 
precept for the teacher thus: — Always make your pupil 
begin his education by dealing luith concrete tilings and 
facts, never loith abstractions and generalizations^such as 
definitions, rules, and propositions couched in ivords. 
Things first, afterwards words — particular facts first, after- 
wards general facts, or principles. The child has eyes, 
ears, and fingers, which he can employ on things and facts, 
and gain ideas — that is, knowledge - from them. Let him, 
then, thus employ them. This employment constitutes his 
elementary education — the education which makes him 
conscious of his powers, forms the mind, and prepares it 
for its after work. 

We now see what Pestalozzi meant by elementary educa- 
tion. The next question is, how he proposed to secure it. 
Let us hear what he himself says : — "If I look back and 
ask myself what I have really done towards the improve- 
ment of elementary education, I find that in recognizing 



— 14 ~ 

Observation (Anschauung) as the absolute basis of all 
knowledge, I have established the first and most important 
principle of instruction ; and that, setting aside all partic- 
ular systems, 1 have endeavored to discover what ought to 
be the character of instruction itself, and what are the funda- 
mental laws according to which the natural education of the 
human race must be conducted." In another place he says, 
''Observation is the absolute basis of all knowledge. In 
other words, all knowledge must proceed from observation, 
and must admit of being traced to that source." 

The word Anschauung, which we translate generally and 
somewhat vaguely by Observation, corresponds rather more 
closely to our word Perception. It is the mind's looking 
into, or intellectual grasping of, a thing, which is due to the 
reaction of its powers, after the passive reception of impres- 
sions or sensations from it. We see a thing which merely 
flits before our eyes, but we perceiye it only when we have 
exhausted the action of our senses upon it, when we have 
dealt with it by the whole mind. The act of perception, 
then, is the act by which we knoiv the object. If we use the 
term Observation in this comprehensive sense, it may be 
taken as equivalent to Ansdiauung. 

Observation, then, according to Pestalozzi (and Bacon 
had said the same thing before him) is the absolute basis of 
all knowledge, and is, therefore, the prime agent in elementa- 
ry education. It is around this theory, as a centre of grav- 
ity, that Pestalozzi's system revolves. 

The demands of this theory can only be satisfied by edu- 
cating the learner's senses, and making him, by their use, 
an accurate observer — and this not merely for the purpose 
of quickening the senses, but of securing clear and definite 
perceptions, and this again with a view to lay firmly the 
foundation of all knowledge. The habit of accurate obser- 
vation, as I have thus defined it, is not taught by Nature. It 
must be acquired by experience. Miss Martineau remarks: 
—"A child does not catch a gold fish in water at the first 



— 15 — 

trial, however good his eyes may be, and however clear the 
water. Knowledge and method are necessary to enable him 
to take what is actually before his eyes and under his hand;" 
and she adds, "The powers of observation must be trained, 
and habits of method in arranging the materials presented 
to the eye [and the other sense-organs] must be acquired 
before the student possesses the requisities for understand- 
ing what he contemplates."* 

It is scarcely necessary to show in detail what is meant 
by the education of the senses. Tliis education consists in 
their exercise — an exercise which involves the development 
of all the elementary powers of the learner. Any one may 
see this education going on in the games and employments 
of the kindergarten, and indeed m the occupations of every 
little child left to himself. It is, therefore, in the strictest 
sense of the term, self-education. But it should also be 
made an object of direct attention and study, and lessons 
should be given for the express purpose of securing it. The 
materials for such lessons are of course abundant on every 
hand. Earth, sky, and sea, the dwelling-house, the fields, 
the gardens, the streets, the river, the forest, supply them 
by thousands. All things within the area of the visible, the 
audible, and the tangible, supply the matter for such object 
lessons, and upon these concrete realities the sense may 
be educated. Drawing, again, and moulding in clay, the cut- 
ting out of paper forms, building with wooden bricks or cubes 
to a pattern, are all parts of the education of the senses, 
and at the same time, exercises for the improvement of the 
observing powers. Then, again, measuring objects with a 
foot measure, weighing them in scales with real weights, 
gaining the power of estimating the dimensions of bodies by 
the eye, and their weight by poising them in the hand, and 
then verifying the guesses by actual trial— these, too, are 

* See some excellent remarks on this subject in Miss Youmans's essay- 
on the culture of the observing powers of children in Becond Book of 
Botany. New York, 



— 16 — 

valuable exercises for the education of the senses. It is 
needless to particularize further, but who does not see that 
such exercises involve, not merely the training of the senses, 
but also the culture of the observing powers as well as the 
exercise of judgment, reasoning, and invention, and all as 
parts of elementary education?* It is impossible to ex- 
aggerate their value and importance. 

But elementary education, rightly understood, applies 
also to the initiatory stage of all definite instruction. If we 
accept Pestalozzi's doctrine, that all education must begin 
with the near, the actual, the real, the concrete, we must 
not begin any subject whatever, in the case of children, with 
the remote, the abstract, and the ideal — that is, never with 
definitions, generalities, or rules; which, as far as their ex- 
perience is concerned, all belong to this category. In teach- 
ing Physics, then, we must begin with the phenomena them- 
selves; in teaching Magnetism, for instance, with the child's 
actual experience of the mutual attraction of the magnet 
and the steel bar; Arithmetic must begin with counting and 
grouping marbles, peas, etc., not with abstract numbers; 
Geometry, not with propositions and theorems, but with ob- 
serving the forms of solid cubes, spheres, etc.; Geography, 
not with excursions into unknown regions, but with the 
schoolroom, the house, etc., thence proceeding concentric- 
ally; Language, too, with observing words and sentences 
as facts to be compared together, classified, and generalized 
by the learner himself. In all these cases the same prin- 
ciple applies. The learner must first gain personal ex- 
perience in the area of the near and the real, in which he 
can exercise his own powers; this area thus becomes the 
known which is to interpret the unknown, and thus the prin- 
ciple is established that the learner educates himself under 
the stimulation and direction of the educator. 



* I beg very strongly to recommend to all teachers, and to mothers 
■who teach their children, a most valuable little book, written by the late 
Horace Grant, Exercises for the Improvement of the Senses. Loudon, 



— IT — 

You are now, I presume, aware of what Pestalozzi 
means by elementary education; and you see that it resolves 
itself into the education which the learner gives himself by 
exercising his own powers of observation and experiment. 
The method of elementary education, is, therefore, the 
child's own natural method of gaining knowledge, guided / 
and superintended by the formal teacher. _____ uf^-xi^^^ 

This method has been, by Diesterweg, an eminent Ger- ,/^Cu^ vwoy 
man disciple of Pestalozzi, strongly distinguished from what / 
he calls the Scientific method— that which is employed inr^^**'" 
higher instruction, in universities and colleges, and is suit- ^^''^^^j/''*' 
able for learners whose minds are already developed ando-^.^^ /.(^r 
trained. The Elementary method, he says, is inductive, 
analytic, inventive (or heuristic, from evpioKu, I find out), 
developing. It begins with individual things or facts, lays 
these as the foundation, and proceeds afterwards to general 
facts or principles. The Scientific method, on the other 
hand, is deductive, synthetic, dogmatic, and didactic. It 
begins with definitions, general propositions, and axioms, 
and proceeds downwards to the individual facts on which 
they are founded. 

I will give the substance of his further remarks on the 
subject. 

In learning by the Elementary method, we begin with 
individual things— facts or objects. From these we gain def- 
inite ideas, ideas naturally related to the condition of our 
powers, or of our knowledge, as being the result of our own 
personal experience. Such knowledge, as the product of 
our own efforts, is ours, in a sense in which no knowledge of 
others can ever become ours; and, being ours, serves as the 
solid basis of the judgment and inductions that we are able 
to form,- the method is inductive because it begins with in- 
dividual facts. 

The Scientific method, on the other hand, is deductive, 
because it begins with general principles, definitions, axioms, 
formulae, etc.; that is to say, with deductive propositions 



— 18 — 

founded on facts which the learner is afterwards to know, 
not with facts which he already knows. The definitions, etc. , 
are constructed for him, not by him. They are the ready- 
made results of the exploration of others, not the gains of 
his own. The deductive method proceeds from the summit 
to the foundation, from the unknown to the known; the in- 
ductive, from the foundation to the summit, from the known 
to the unknown. 

The mind dealing with individual things, and seeking to 
know them, has no choice but to subject them to mental 
analysis. Every individual thing is an aggregate of ele- 
ments, which can only be known by disintegration of the 
compound. Nature presents us with no element whatever 
alone and simple. The Elementary method, therefore, 
which requires the learner to perform this disintegration, is 
analytic. In other words, as resting on observation and 
experiment, it is the method of investigation. 

The Scientific method, on the other hand, is synthetic. 
It performs the analysis for the learner, and hands over to 
him the results. It directs him to re-construct something, 
the form of which he has not seen, and tells him at every 
moment where and how he is to place the materials. He 
does not necessarily know what he is constructing until the 
complete form is before him. He satisfies the demands of 
the method, if he obeys the directions given him. He is not 
required to observe and experiment— i e., to investigate for 
himself. 

The Elementary method is inventive (heuristic). It 
places the learner on the path of discovery, and by en- 
couraging spontaneity and independence, gives free scope 
for the exercise of all his powers. It suggests to him new 
combinations of ideas already acquired, and the solution of 
difliculties which come in his way. 

The spirit of the Scientific method is opposed to inven- 
tion. It didactically furnishes ready-made matter which is 
to be received, not questioned, and dogmatically prescribes 



— 19 — 

obedience to fixed rules. It consequently checks spontane- 
ity, independence, and invention. 

The Scientific method, then, as thus interpreted, though 
adapted to students of high pretensions, is not adapted to 
those who are acquiring the elements of knowledge. Tlie 
mistake, for the discovery of which we are indebted to Pes- 
talozzi, is, that in our ordinary traditional teaching the Sci- 
entific metliod has, unfortunately, come to be employed in 
our schools for children where the Elementary method alone 
is natural and suited to tlie circumstances. Pestalozzi's 
eminent claim to our gratitude consists in the service 
he has done to education by "turning the traditional car 
of school routine quite round, and setting it in a new di- 
rection. " 

I conclude the exposition I have given of Pestalozzi's 
fundamental principles, by appending a summary of them. 

(1) The principles of education are not to be devised ab 
extra; they are to be sought for in human nature. 

(2) This nature is an organic nature — a plexus of bodily, 
intellectual, and moral capabilities, ready for development, 
and struggling to develop themselves. 

(3) The education conducted by the formal educator has 
both a negative and a positive side. The negative function 
of the educator consists in removing impediments, so as to 
afibrd free scope for the learner's self-development. The 
educator's positive function is to stimulate the learner to the 
exercise of his powers, to furnish materials and occasions 
for the exercise, and to superintend and maintain the action 
of the machinery. 

(4) Self-development begins with the impressions re- 
ceived by the mind from external objects. These impressions 
(called sensations), when the mind becomes conscious of 
them, group themselves into perceptions. These are reg- 
istered in the mind as conceptions or ideas, and constitute 
that elementary knowledge which is the basis of all knowl- 
edge. 



— 20 — 

(5) Spontaneity and self-activity are the necessary con- 
ditions under which the mind educates itself, and gains 
power and independence. 

(6) Practical aptness, or faculty, depends more on habits 
gained by the assiduous oft-repeated exercise of the learner's 
active powers, than on knowledge alone. Knowing and 
doing {wissen unci konnen) must, however, proceed to- 
gether. The chief aim of all education (including instruc- 
tion) is the development of the learner's powers. 

(7) All education (including instruction) must be 
grounded on the learner's own observation (Anschauung) 
at first hand— on his own personal experience. This is the 
true basis of all his knowledge. The opposite proceeding 
leads to empty, hollow, delusive word-knowledge. First the 
■reality, then the symbol; first the thing, then the word; not 
vice versa. 

(8) What the learner has gained by his own observation 
(Anschauung), and, as a part of his personal experience, is 
incorporated with his mind, he knows, and can describe or 
explain in his own words. His competency to do this is the 
measure of the accuracy of his observation, and, consequent- 
ly, of his knowledge. 

(9) Personal experience necessitates the advancement 
of the learner's mind from the near and actual, with which 
he is in contact, and which he can deal with himself, to the 
more remote; therefore, from the concrete to the abstract, 
from particulars to generals, from the known to the un- 
known. This is the method of elementary education; the 
opposite proceeding — the usual proceeding of our traditional 
teaching — leads the mind from the abstract to the concrete, 
from generals to particulars, from the unknown to the 
known. This latter is the Scientific method — a method 
suited only to the advanced learner, who, it assumes, is al- 
ready trained by the Elementary method. 




E. STEIGER, 

NEW YORK. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 159 809 A 



